[Focus] Faye and Sonko expected at the turning point after an announced electoral tidal wave

The ruling party, PASTEF, is heading towards an overwhelming majority in Parliament and the Senegalese are now waiting for the president and the Prime Minister to use it to ease their daily lives and implement the agenda of rupture and social justice that has propelled to power eight months ago.

“Senegal is doing badly (in) all areas,” said John Mendy, restaurateur, in a street in the center of Dakar the day after the legislative elections. With the majority announced in Parliament, the leaders “have everything they need, they have (no longer) arguments” behind which to hide, he insists, “The Senegalese are waiting for them (in) all the domains”.

Voters gave Pastef three-quarters of the seats in the National Assembly on Sunday, according to projections based on provisional partial results.

As is tradition in Senegal, voters extended the momentum of the presidential election in March, when the thirst for change after three years of economic crisis and political confrontation, and the aspiration for another governance entrusted to a new generation, dedicated the duo Bassirou Diomaye Faye – Ousmane Sonko.

The placid Faye, elected president although devoid of any executive experience, appointed the fiery Sonko as Prime Minister, president of Pastef, who would have been in his place if his candidacy had not been invalidated. Analysts put the “raid” of the legislative elections to the credit of Mr. Sonko, who would now have free rein to start implementing his project.

For eight months, the Faye-Sonko pair led a conflictual coexistence with an Assembly dominated by the former majority Benno Bokk Yaakaar.

Mr. Faye dissolved it as soon as constitutional deadlines permitted, in September, causing early legislative elections on Sunday.

Radio RFM credits Pastef with 119 seats out of 165, the citizen platform Vie publique with 129.

The government daily Le Soleil headlines on “the Pastef surge”.

“Sénégal Moy Sonko” (“Senegal is Sonko” in Wolof), writes the newspaper Le Quotidien, although critical of the government, diverting the slogan with which Pastef convinced presidential voters that they should vote for Bassirou Diomaye Faye , it was like voting for Mr. Sonko.

“Everyone is waiting”

The opposition, dispersed, would be crushed. The Takku Wallu Senegal coalition of former President Macky Sall would only win 15 parliamentary mandates, according to projections from the same media.

The opposition campaigned by taking up the grievance formulated by a certain number of Senegalese according to which, for eight months, Mr. Sonko spoke a lot and acted little. The person concerned defends himself by arguing the state in which he and Mr. Faye found the country, and the multiple resistance to his ambition to change practices and the system.

Pape Diagne, trader, is “really happy” with Sunday’s results. But the executive must now get to work, he said in a street in the capital. “There are girls waiting, there are boys waiting, there is everyone waiting.”

Mr. Sonko has so far remained silent.

“The Senegalese people have given us an unequivocal vote of confidence. All we have to do is roll up our sleeves to fundamentally transform our country and lift it out of poverty once and for all,” the former president wrote on social media. Prime Minister Aminata Touré, high representative of the president.

The cost of living is a major concern for the population. Unemployment reaches more than 20%, and even more so among young people. Half of the population is under 19 years old.

The new leaders are in turn confronted with the wave of these hundreds of compatriots who leave each month in canoes to seek a better future in Europe.

The public accounts are in the red.

The executive is expected to address the multiple immediate emergencies and the numerous promises it has made: vote on the 2025 budget, repeal of a contested amnesty law or, beyond that, transformation of the State and its justice.

The daily L’Observateur also cites among “the hot issues awaiting the 15th legislature” the vote on a law toughening penalties against homosexuality.

Analysts agree on the fact that Mr. Sonko is master of the game. Even more than before, “it is Ousmane Sonko who will continue to dictate the way of running the country”, more than the head of state himself in a system nevertheless considered hyper-presidentialist, says teacher researcher El Hadji Mamadou Mbaye.

The head of state “only has this legitimacy to be president thanks to Sonko”, he judges.